My intention when I first started blogging was purely to document our farm – understanding its cycles, what produces when and what grows well and doesn’t. But then as I read other blogs I decided to make mine public as well with the intention of updating weekly. How hard can it be to sit down at my computer and type once a week about happenings in the farm. There is actually a lot of stuff going on so there is plenty of material to write about. But alas, theory and practice are always different, and it’s been more challenging than I thought. Truth be told, it’s not that hard if I just make a commitment. It is interesting to note, if you look at some of the blogs I follow, many if not most haven’t kept up with theirs either. So I know I’m not alone in my efforts. But I’m going to recommit to at minimum weekly blogging (along with other commitments, 10K steps a day, daily exercise, limiting processed and sugary foods … the list could go on).
So today … FIGS
We planted a number of fig trees a few years ago, but the birds always get to most of them before we do, and our yield hasn’t been large. This year, however, is a different story. Our figs are going off, and we have lots of them. We have many different varieties, blue mountain, brown turkey, Kadota, and small honey figs. The picture above shows the small honey figs, brown turkey, and the Kadota. We have more varieties, but we haven’t done a good job of remembering what they are (hence the idea of the blog to keep track of these things when we get them). All the figs are really good, but those small honey figs are so so sweet, they’re to die for. This year we placed bird repellant discs on the fig trees in an effort to divert birds. We have a few different types, and they all seem to be working well. We ordered ours from Amazon.
This year we planted number of European figs in a newer section of the garden. They’re too young to produce at this time, but the trees are growing well, and we might get some next year. We planted black Madeira Portuguese figs, honey sweet fig – a dark Portuguese variety, blue mountain, Genovese Nero fig, and a variety of a giant fig. We’ll see what variety does well, and plant more of those. On the Big Island there are 10 of the 13 climate zones located here. We live in a Mediterranean region here along this section of the Hamakua coast. Although it’s not a true Mediterranean climate, the classification is close, so we fit into it. Figs should do well in this region, and this year it appears that is true.
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